Trying to ID woods

[Alzey]

I am trying to improve my abilites to Identify wood species. So far I am not doing too good I purchased a 5 lb grab bag from Woodcraft. I have spent a couple of hours on the web trying to figure out what i have. The large slab is a piece i cut from some old shop wood that has a strong odor that could be spruce or a cedar variant. Any help with ID or resouces I can look at would be much appreciated.

 

[Timebandit]

Pic 1) Far left looks like Black Ash Burl, the 2 on the right look like Maple Burl

Pic 2) The middle looks like more Maple Burl to me and the 1 on the right looks like Marblewood

Pic 3) Almost all of that in the middle looks like Amboyna Burl or maybe some of it Afzelia Burl

Pic 4) All of that is Marblewood for sure. I bought a nice slab of it from Woodcraft a long time ago..

 

[Akula]

pic 3 couple looks like some mesquite w/sap

 

[1080Wayne]

www.hobbithouseinc.com

www.thewoodexplorer.com

Identifying Wood , R Bruce Hoadley , The Taunton Press

 

[Alzey]

Thanks for the tips. Pic 4 is marblewood and was about 1/2 the bag i got. Did some more digging on the Burls. They are defiantly Burls but without knowing the exact tree they came from, it is hard to tell. I have looked as several sites with pictures of burls and can't tell the difference with may of them :befuddled:. I think the blank will make beautiful pens, I just have to be careful with blowouts (thin ca will be my new best friend). I guess if I want to provide info on the wood used in the pens, I need to buy named blanks so I don't have to do so much guessing.

 

[Sabaharr]

If knowing for sure is a problem for ya I will gladly take them off your hands, LOL. Actually I too am a stickler for knowing what they are because nearly every time someone looks at one of my wood pens they want to know what wood it is. Others I have talked to say they are seldom asked. Guess I have a nosier bunch of customers. I just write on the blank then after production I put a small tag on the pocket clip with the specis on one side and price on the other. My memory is not what it use to be, sorry, what was the question?